Cool... except... why would I pay $400 reward when I could get a new one for $359?

BOb

Because you want YOUR Kindle back and it is worth 400 dollars to you not to have to reload your reading material.

Or maybe not.

Hey, if you're real tough you could just arrange to meet them and beat them for stealing your kindle in the first place and then take your kinldle and ROB THEM because you are a tough guy who is freaking out over fourty one bucks so you could use the money, but then I'm gusssing you're not that tough if somebody stole your KINDLE. Maybe if they stole your motorcycle or your pet cobra but face it man, they stole your frigging KINDLE.

Also, and this is another stretch, If you have a KINDLE you are probably not too worried about fourty bucks.

Hey, if you're real tough you could just arrange to meet them and beat them for stealing your kindle in the first place and then take your kinldle and ROB THEM because you are a tough guy who is freaking out over fourty one bucks so you could use the money, but then I'm gusssing you're not that tough if somebody stole your KINDLE. Maybe if they stole your motorcycle or your pet cobra but face it man, they stole your frigging KINDLE.

I never leave my Kindle on my unattended Vespa. I always carry it with me in my fanny pack. But, if someone does steal it, I will [hire someone to] kick their ass.

Here's how to do your own... I didn't discover this, just re-posting for your convenience:

1. Attach the Kindle to a computer using the USB cord.
2. Using Windows Explorer (or whatever you use to see individual files/folders) , you should see a new drive called Kindle under My Computer. Go to that drive. (Or if you have an SD card in your Kindle, you can go to the SD drive.)
3. Create a new folder called “pictures” and a subfolder called “screensavers” under it. Make sure both folder names are all lowercase.
4. Copy your image files into the screensavers folder. Your pictures should be 600×800 pixels and black & white. I’ve only used .jpg files. [[Note: I've used .png files as well]]
5. After copying is complete & it is safe, remove the Kindle from the USB connection.
6. Go to your Home menu and press alt-z. This will create a new book called “screensavers” . Open it. You’ll see each of your pictures. You can advance through them with the prev. page and next page buttons. [[Note: The new book will appear at the END of your book list]]
7. While viewing your pictures, look at the bottom of the Kindle screen. If you see your battery indicator & Menu prompt, press alt-F to go into Full Screen mode.
8. On each photo, press alt-shift-0 (i.e., alt-shift-zero) . After a brief delay, you’ll get a message that your picture has been exported as screensaver. Click Close on the message.
9. Navigate to each of the pictures you want to use and repeat the above step.
10. When you’ve got all your pictures loaded, test them by going into & out of sleep mode. Alt-aA (i.e., alt-font size button) puts it to sleep & wakes it up again. Each time it sleeps, it should use a different image. If you see the same image all the time, relook at Step 3.

If you want to get rid of your custom screen savers, follow these steps:

1. Attach the Kindle to a computer using the USB cord.
2. Using Windows Explorer (or whatever you use to see individual files/folders) , go to your Kindle drive under My Computer.
3. If you see a folder called system, skip this step. If you don’t see the system folder, click on the Tools menu & then Folder Options. Go to the View tab, and look at the Advanced Settings. Under Hidden Files and Folders, select Show Hidden Files and Folders. Click Apply, then OK. You should now see a system folder. 4. Under the system folder, you’ll see a screen_saver folder. Delete all the files that are in that folder.
5. After you disconnect from the USB, you may see your last custom screensaver one more time, but after that it will revert back to the pre-loaded Kindle screensaver images.

Ummm ... I've gotten my own screensavers in there just fine. However, it sounds like I should be able to get into the system folder and delete the ones I don't want.

Also ... I added one screensaver by accident (it was my bookplate graphic, but I didn't notice that the full screen view was not on ... so it's got the battery image and such on it ... which I don't want) and I can't seem to get rid of that one. No matter what I do.

Okay, I just did a little experiment because I had some of my personal screensaver images with the little on battery on them as well. I do not have any of my folders hidden and I don't see one called "system".

I opened the folder that contained the original images I used for my screensavers and deleted both of the screensaver.manga files. Then I re-saved everything from scratch (17 images). If there is a way to remove just one or two, I haven't been able to figure out how to do it.

Well ... for me that did not work so well. Although I deleted the manga, and resaved the picture properly as a screensaver ... the dreaded rouge screensaver with stupid battery image still kept popping up.

So, I figued it must have been saved to the system ... but I can't get in the system to see.

I wonder if they plugged that hole recently?? Don't they realize I'll just find another way to hack into it??

I just wanted to pipe in and say that I realized how the Kindle 'screensaver' is superior to a blank screen. It makes it still look like a book! Even when you are not reading a book, something is still on the page. I think it's Amazon's way of making it look more aesthetically pleasing than a blank page.

I finally found the hidden system file for my Kindle. Even though I always have "show hidden files and folders" checked, I had neglected to remove the check box from "hide protected system operating files". Once I unchecked that, the folder was visible.